Get out your noisemakers, pointy hats, and someone to smooch when the clock strikes midnight. It’s the Martian New Year, and the appropriately named Mars, Pennsylvania, is holding a big party to celebrate.

It’s a party that only comes around every couple years. The Martian New Year happens the same time as the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. That equinox is coming around this month, NASA reported.

Mars’ celebrations fall on June 18 to 20 — in two years, it’ll be held on May 5. This small Pennsylvania town 20 miles north of Pittsburgh, and home to about 1,700 earthlings, is the perfect spot for such a celebration — it even has a flying saucer sculpture in the middle of town. The festival was born when the local historical society tried to figure out how to promote their town, which has an advantageous name.

NASA will launch more than 1,100 haiku to Mars aboard the MAVEN spacecraft later this year. The haiku are part of a contest that was sponsored by the University of Colorado and aimed at getting the public more interest in space.
Contestants were asked to “submit haiku poetry relating to NASA’s upcoming MAVEN mission to Mars,” per the university’s website. The MAVEN mission, which launches in November, is setting out to find out why the Red Planet lost its protective atmosphere, reports Discovery News. Scientists generally believe that Mars was once much like Earth. However, something happened to turn it from a lush, water world into a dry, cold desert.